Bathtime and Dahlia Craziness

Riley is not a lover of baths. If she doesn't cry while in the tub, she screams bloody murder while being dried off and dressed. Lately Chris has been taking her in the shower with him and washing her there and then passing her off to me. She has a mixed reaction to the shower. sometimes she likes the stream, sometimes she doesn't. Well, tonight was bath night and Chris is at the Red Sox game with Peter, so a bath it was. I think I jinxed something because I was on the phone with Jenni and telling her about Riley's aversion to baths. Then, wouldn't ya know it, no bath drama tonight. I showed Riley the rubber duckie and the made it spash around in the water for her and, go figure, she started laughing. Apparently that duckie was the funniest thing she'd seen in a long time because she kept laughing at it. Maybe it was the good bath vibes coming up from Massachusetts where Jumpin' James was having his bath too. The picture isn't from tonights bath but from another time when Daddy decided to play with Riley's hair.

For my birthday I asked my in-laws for a label maker. I wanted to make labels for the little white plastic things to stick in the ground next to my dahlias so I would know what variety was growing where. Last week I started making labels for all of my varieties and tonight I stuck them all to the white plastic sticks. It turns out I have 44 different types of dahlias and now I have a little stick for each one. I'm not sure where I'm going to put 44 tubers - and I actually have more because I have doubles of some - but I did it last year so I must have the space. Actually I think I planted 30 something last year. It was such fun making all of my little tags though and I even alphabetized them tonight when I should have been doing work for school. It's hard to find motivation for school when there are only two days left until April vacation.

I also broke one of my own school rules today and took one of my classes outside. I don't want to lie to the kids by saying "maybe someday" when they ask about going out during good weather, so I usually say, "I'd not going to lie to you. We are never going outside." I have a small class of seniors at the end of the day and they were asking last week about going outside. I told them we could go out today if it was nice since we would be finishing up the play Hamlet and it would be Shakespeare's birthday. It turned out to be a beautiful day at around 85 degrees. So we went out, acted out Hamlet, and ate Italian Ice to celebrate the Bard's birthday. It was also one of my students' 18th birthday, so we celebrated that too. They were fairly well behaved and it was nice to be out in the sun.